The gale whistled about their ears. A candle flickered in the lighthouse across the marsh. Sea spray carried all the way to the line of men advancing irregularly. They would have the element of surprise, but formation integrity would be impossible. Already the skirmish line was porous.
Jordan Fredericks mixed dread of responsibility with the natural fear of combat, something he could no longer rationalize away at least until the fight was enjoined. His darkest secret was that he was no longer comfortable in his own authority, his leadership; but he still knew well enough his duty. The entire attack, perhaps the outcome of the war itself, depended upon him.
"Keep the line. Advance oblique. Stay low. Fire on signal or if fired upon not before. No more talking beyond this point. Pass it down."
He gave identical messages to each marine at his flank and watched the heads listening and turning, listening and turning. But he could not see farther than three or four men either way. The gale was howling, now, and the eerie landscape around them seemed about to be ripped from the earth by the wind.
They had to take the lighthouse in full darkness or the surprise would be lost, the fleet would be spotted in the channel and the Confederate guns would blow the side-wheelers out of the water. At least he would never know if his order of silence would be obeyed since it was necessary to shout over the wailing of the wind. But he had faith in his men. They were seasoned in war and they were United States Marines.
They began the advance. The land was so foreign to him. It was flat like home, Ravenna, Ohio. But so low, so watery, so filled with vermin. He did not mean the Rebels when he thought of vermin. Here in Louisiana, some of the vigilantes and jayhawkers and bands of deserters were demonic. General Mouton's men, though, were as gallant and honorable as any union soldier. But the land was infested with every bloodsucking, sidewinding, ankle-biting creature in existence.
They had laughed when they first heard the name of the objective: Sabine Pass. They joked about Sabine women and imagined themselves to be modern Roman soldiers. Now, in the reality of their mission, all of that had changed.
In flashes of lightning, Fredericks saw the irregularity of the line. There was nothing to do about it. When the fight began, it would only be a matter of individual ferocity, anyway. If only there were no Tigers in the lighthouse, there would be hope. The Zouave Louisiana Tiger brigades never surrendered.
The Sabine Pass fortifications had been designed by P.G.T. Beauregard when he was a young officer with the Corps of Engineers. And the Tigers looked upon him as a minor god. They would defend that lighthouse like a temple.
And they would keep it dark. If they could. Louisiana Tigers versus U.S. Marines in the first amphibious landing since the Bahamas in the last war with England, and Lieutenant Jordan Fredericks would be leading the attack. That was something he had been thinking about, dreading and yet exulting in the possibility since receiving his orders.
In the next volley of lightning – so like cannon fire in the distance – he saw the structure. It was like the diagrams, only more imposing. The "Napoleon in Gray" had built it. So it would have to be imposing. He dug the flare pistol from his haversack, held it ready.
Closer. Nothing from the lighthouse. Perhaps it was abandoned. In the sweat of wading through the storm-flooded marsh and the stink of fear, he hoped it would be empty, undefended, the Rebels all safe and dry from the storm, sipping pre-dawn breakfast coffee in a mess hall or still asleep in a squadbay far away. He tried to convince himself he had not seen the candles. Closer.
A volley of lightning and musket fire. His men began to fall around him. He fired the flare to signal the attack to the waiting warships, angling it over the lighthouse in hope of providing some illumination but the wind blew it back. It illuminated, all right, it lighted up their skirmish line. They had to fall to the marsh and advance on their bellies, like the snakes around them. Dear God.
***
Admiral Farragut came to the bridge just as the Marine adjutant was about to send a runner for him. An officer with an aristocratic bearing and a slight paunch, Farragut was an enigma in many ways. He was at once brilliant and naive, taciturn and understanding. And he had single-handedly wrecked the Confederate fleet, bottled it up. The Navy took New Orleans. He peered through glasses as though he could see through the storm.
"Time, Major," he demanded, not taking his eyes from the binoculars.
"Sir! Four! Bells! Twenty! Sir!" the Marine adjutant barked. Farragut turned to him with an amused but admiring smile.
"Your boys will have started the attack, then, eh Major?"
"Sir! Yes, sir!" he said. The major seemed to have been created with military bearing, all ramrod and not just for the parade deck, either. He'd been wounded twice in this war and twice at Chapultepec. Farragut was well aware of the records of his men.
"Standby, Major."
"Sir! Aye-aye, sir!"
Farragut turned to his navigator.
"Well, Hank, how does it feel to be on the brink of the touchiest piece of invasion navigation since the Revolution?"
"If we get that signal, Admiral, I'll guide your boats right into the streets of Port Arthur, sir."
Farragut chuckled.
"We've about got the tides for it. Wind at our backs … we won't need the steam. We could sail in running hull-speed like in the old days, eh Hank?"
It was Farragut's way of calming his sailors; triviality, even sentimentality on the edge of an attack. The Marine major was standing at parade rest. Farragut twisted his moustache, admiring the Marine's military posture.
"Well, Major, it seems your men hold our country's destiny in their trigger fingers. Who's leading the attack?"
"Sir! Lieutenant Jordan Fredericks, sir!"
"He's the lad that distinguished himself at Mobile Bay, isn't that right?"
"Sir! Yes, sir!"
A sailor streaming water, hatless, his hair plastered to his head, barged through the door to the bridge and seeing the admiral came at once to rigid attention.
"Sir, Seaman Third Class Harriman reporting, sir."
"Relax, sailor," Farragut said.
"Aye-aye, sir. Sir, we've just spotted the signal."
"Are you sure, sailor?"
"Sir, yes sir," the sailor said. Farragut was already peering again with the binoculars. "Can't see it from the bridge, sir, but she's sightly enough from the rigging."
Farragut turned that amused look on the sailor.
"Well, my rigging climbing days are over, son. Signal the assault! It's up to you, now Hank. Weigh storm anchor. Full steam ahead."
"Sir! Aye-aye, sir," the navigator said. Even as the bells were sounding and the steam engines cooking pressure, Farragut turned to the major.
"As soon as we secure this operation, Major, I want a launch at my ready. I want to be in the first boatload of relief for your gallant boys. Securing the Sabine and supplying armies to reach the Red just might end all resistance in the lower Mississippi River Valley. It might mean home, Major."
"Sir! Begging your pardon, Sir! Home for me is the U.S. Marine Barracks, Washington, Sir!"
"Acknowledged, Major, but you may have one or two boys out there on terra more-or-less firma who really deserve mother's home cooking."
The boats had been bucking stern to storm with the southerly wind. With anchors aweigh, bows shot forward charging like racehorses instead. With steam up and winds and tides at their favor, they sped past the Confederate guns, guided by the beacon of the lighthouse. Not one boat was lost.
***
The storm subsided in mid-morning. There was that eerie, storm-after calm. Bright balmy sunlight lit green the flattened grass. The sun, itself, seemed suspended as the launch made for the island.
There was no sign of life, but many signs of death. In the absence of the slightest breeze, the flies dined uninterrupted at the coagulating blood. The major went from corpse to corpse. Most of them had died advancing in the ragged skirmish line.
Even the combat-hardened was moved. His face was suddenly drawn and gray, as though land had made him seasick. Gently, he turned over and examined each dead marine. He wiped his face with the scarf of his kepi.
"Sir, that's the full complement lacking one, sir. Never made it to objective. None of them, sir, except one." Some of the starch had gone out of his bearing. "All fell except Fredericks. He is not among them."
They found Fredericks in a litter of Confederate dead just inside the lighthouse on the first steps of the winding staircase. His was the only blue blouse among the red short-waists, the tasseled hats, like aftermath on the Barbary Coast. Farragut knelt beside him, looked deeply into the unblinking gray eyes.
"Good God, what a man," Farragut said. "These Tigers are ferocious. Singled-handed he must have fought his way wounded to the beacon. He must have died coming down, tumbled down."
Inside the lighthouse the buzzing of the ravenous flies echoed mortality. Farragut took another good, long look. It was as though he were memorizing every detail.
"Know what I'd like to do, Major?" He straightened to full height slowly, the way much older men ease their joints into action upon rising. "I'd like to get this boy that new-fangled Medal of Honor. He certainly exemplified 'gallantry and other seamanlike qualities'." Trouble is, Congress requires witnesses. This boy's last full measure of devotion will go unrecorded, I'm afraid. Pity. He knew the meaning of duty."
The major did not reply. Farragut clasped his hands behind his back and paced out of the structure, the major in tow. Outside, both men took a deep breath of fresh air.
"Let us get a burial party out here. Bury them in that stand of oaks over there, Major, in lieu of sea services. Rebel dead, too, but for God's sake separate them and mark the graves. Maybe that way they'll get home … eventually."
***
The little island was littered with beer cans and synthetic food wrappers. The lighthouse was imposing, straight-lined brick against the softer construction of nature. James Eloi Trosclair, Jet, had seen P.G.T. Beauregard's architecture before, in the forts he built for the Corps of Engineers in St. Bernard Parish before the War Between the States, that very uncivil conflict.
"You're certain the light you saw was from this lighthouse?" he asked again.
"Sure as I'm standing here," the crew-boat captain said.
"And the lighthouse hasn't operated since ..."
"Not since the turn of the century. Obsolete. Never even had electricity. Didn't need it. They had optics back then that could send a beam five miles from a single candle. And that's about what I saw, one of them old reflection signals.
Jet paused in the shadow of the lighthouse, leaning back to look up to the blunt point of the top. The structure was in remarkably good shape.
"Looks like a rocket ship," he commented.
"Mister, it looks like heaven to me. We was in one hell of a storm, I mean to tell you. Come up so fast it wasn't a question of making some other port, Grand Cheniere, for instance. We had to come up the Sabine. Hadn't been for that light, I wouldn't be standing here talking to you right now."
Jet walked up to the door, pushed it open. A sickening stench assaulted him. Unprepared, he had to duck his head outside for a breath of air. Inside, the flies were thriving on human waste. Huge, blue-green headed ones rose and settled like an indecisive cloud on thick sausages of feces. Puddles of urine had stained large yellow blotches on the granite floor.
Jet backed out of the door, forcing the crewboat captain to back out with him. It wasn't the stench from the feces that made him retreat. There was a presence inside, a presence from the other side.
"I'd better go on up alone," Jet said. "You understand, don't you Captain?"
"I'll wait for you at the boat. Outer these damn flies."
So Jet went up alone. The lighthouse had been used as an outhouse for decades, but most urgencies had apparently required only lower-level attention. The higher he went, the less of the stench and the more natural light illuminated hand-forged steel steps that had rusted considerably but seemed sturdy enough. Still, Jet took care to entrust his soles only to the outward edge of the spiral stairway, against the stone.
There was no glass in the beacon chamber, not even a sliver. The wind off the river and the lake and the Gulf whistled among the stanchions. There was no machinery of any kind, just rusted and broken mounts jutting from the granite floor.
Jet was overcome with a tremendous feeling of loneliness. It was like nothing he had ever experienced except perhaps the black longing he had felt when his wife had deserted him many years before. He knew the emotion was empathetic, not really his own. And still he did not see the soldier until the sun had moved a shadow, deepening the texture.
"Hello," Jet said as gently as he could, as though he had just walked into a drawing room and discovered an unexpected guest.
"Afternoon, sir."
"My name is James Eloi Trosclair," Jet said.
The solider snapped to attention. Now Jet could see that he was under arms, complete with saber, blue tunic, kepi hat with the familiar globe and anchor symbol. He saluted smartly.
"Lieutenant Jordon Fredericks, Fleet Marine Force, United States Marine Corps. At your service, sir. I see you are a civilian. Non-combatant?"
Jet held up his hands palms outward, shook his head and laughed agreeably. In that instant, it occurred to him that this gesture of palms outward must be one of the oldest in human communication, a visible show of benign, empty palms.
"No, sir," Jet said. You don't have to worry about that. We're all together, now."
"Pardon?"
His accent was thick with Rs, slightly nasal and mid-western.
"I'm not a soldier like yourself."
"Begging your pardon, sir, but I'm not a soldier. I'm a Marine."
"Sorry."
"Perfectly all right, sir."
"How long have you been … uh … stationed here?"
"My orders are to hold the position until relieved, sir."
"All alone?"
"My men are ... bivouacked in those trees yonder, sir."
"I see," Jet said. He walked to the side nearest the grove of oaks. Where the light penetrated the branches, it was overgrown. There was no sign of an encampment, or anything else for that matter. "I don't see them."
"Discipline has been rather lax, sir. Garrison duty is hard on Marines, you see."
"I understand," Jet said. "Son… you seem a trifle confused."
"Can't understand where my relief might be, sir. There've been no enemy patrols."
"Yes, yes. Listen, son. The war is over."
The face broke out a boyish grin beneath the eye-level visor of the kepi. Then the face went even more somber than before.
"I know General Grant has carried the day … he did, didn't he sir?"
"Magnificently. In accepting Lee's surrender, he was most magnanimous."
"Why, that's wonderful, sir. Simply wonderful. Then we should be relieved, soon. Mustered out."
"Son," Jet said gently as before. "You've done a fine job here. Your country should be very proud of you. Why don't you give it up?"
"Give it up? Give up what, sir? My orders are to hold the position until relieved. You don't mean to give up the lighthouse? You're not a Rebel sympathizer, are you?"
The Marine's hand went to the butt of the Colt cap-and-ball revolver at his side.
"The ghost, son. I want you to give up the ghost."
The Marine snapped immediately to attention.
"My orders are to hold the lighthouse until relieved, sir. It's my duty."
"I see," Jet said. "Your duty. You believe in duty, do you?"
"Sir! I'm a United States Marine, sir!" he snapped.
Jet pondered.
"Your men are in that grove of trees?"
"Yes, sir," the Marine said. Then his military bearing slipped a little as he inclined his head toward him. "There're some Rebs, too, sir, that we … captured. They need to be transferred, as well, sir. It's been hard on them, too, sir, though they're much closer to home."
"I understand, Lieutenant. Listen, son, I have a little influence in Washington. I believe I can get you a duty station at Arlington."
"Sir! Lee's plantation, sir?"
"The very one. It's a Union installation, now."
"That would be great, sir," the Marine said. His expression was boyish again, the boy who had to interrupt his youth for war. "Well … after a shore leave, sir, if you can arrange it. I believe we all deserve shore leave."
"I'll see to it."
"And the Rebs, sir?"
"They'll go to Arlington, too, son. Like I said, we're all together, now."
"That would be fine, sir, but they'll muster out before they'll leave the state. They're Tigers, sir, Louisiana Tigers. Fine fighters and loyal only to their home soil, sir."
"I'll see they're given suitable accommodations."
"I'd be obligated, sir. It's been a long war. Sometimes I feel like we've been forgotten."
"We'll fix that, son, and it has been a long war. Too long. Keep up the good work."
The lieutenant snapped to attention again, again with the hand salute sharp at the visor of the kepi.
"Aye-aye, sir! " he said and the sun moved the shadow. Jet could no longer see him. He descended through the neglect and forgotten glory, walked out into the sunshine.
"What did you find up there?" the crewboat captain asked eagerly, startling him.
"Ainh? Oh. Nothing. Captain, could you bring me straight into Port Arthur? I have to make a call to the Historical Society and I don't want to waste a minute. There's a Civil War graveyard under those oaks, Confederate and Union dead."
"You gone crazy? Ain't nothing under them oaks. I played there when I was a boy and there wasn't nothin'."
"Sometimes you got to dig a little deep, Captain," Jet said.
Jet was looking into the deepening shadows of the oaks. He could almost see the rounded graves and wooden crosses which had flattened and rotted in the wind and the rain. He smiled. The Romans had carried the Sabine women away, now he would transport the men.